


it will come back

by weisenbachfelded



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Combeferre/Courfeyrac - Freeform, Joly/Bossuet/Musichetta - Freeform, M/M, jehan/bahorel - Freeform, marius/cosette - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:28:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26978839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weisenbachfelded/pseuds/weisenbachfelded
Summary: Often, Enjolras thinks he regrets that it was he who left first, but that is quickly quashed by the crippling guilt he feels for having swept them up in his irreverent idealism. It was only a matter of time, after that last protest, before they realised that their youth was so far behind them, that they were still living lives that had long left them behind.orThree years after swearing off Paris for good, Enjolras finds himself back there for a wedding, face to face with his guilt, his old friends, and Grantaire.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [You never have to wonder; you never have to ask.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5413856) by [gamesformay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamesformay/pseuds/gamesformay). 



> hi! this is new territory for me! fingers crossed it goes well  
> this fic is super super inspired by ‘you never have to wonder; you never have to ask’ by gamesformay - i’ve linked it and it is required reading no questions asked xo

When Enjolras receives the gold-embossed invitation in the mail, on a Monday morning in April, he very nearly rips it up into pieces. 

He doesn’t, though. There is a little tear in the centre, at the top, where his hands had paused, quite unable to go through with it. Instead, he lays it down, smooths over it with his hand, so that the tear looks as if it has been neatly sealed over. The corner is bent a little, from his rough handling of it. It fills him with a strange kind of sickly dread to look at it. 

It stays on his kitchen countertop for almost a week, face-upwards, because he doesn’t want to see the photograph on the back, of Cosette in Marius’ arms, the lights of Paris in the early evening sparkling nearly as much as the couple in the foreground. 

Grantaire took the photograph, he knows. The composition of the picture, the angles of the shadows, the very tone of the lighting, are all so achingly _Grantaire_ that it makes him want to cry. 

He does not cry. 

Instead, he passes by the kitchen counter every morning on his way out, and he tries to deny the way his eyes flick over to it as he picks up his keys. He very much determinedly does not think about it all week, nor does he look up the price of a train from Nice to Paris in his lunch break on Wednesday. 

(He doesn’t get further than typing the ‘r’ in ‘Paris’, though, because Mme Marienne, who teaches Art, knocks on his door to ask for an eraser, which prompts him to hit every button on his computer to try and close the page, in some strange kind of panicked shame.)

As anticipated, he gets a text from Combeferre on Friday. He’s on his lunch break, this time sitting facing the door, so that he can see anyone who might be approaching. At the quiet buzzing of his phone, he pauses mid-bite of his sandwich, and puts down the red pen he had been using to mark a tenth-grade essay. 

**drinks tonight?**

Enjolras thinks, for a wild moment, that he might just ignore it. Combeferre knows him far too well for this not to be about the wedding, and Enjolras knows him far too well to know that he’ll drop the subject if he refuses to go. An email comes through on his computer with the subject line _Friday Night Staff Drinks!_. Enjolras picks up his phone and replies to Combeferre. 

_Seven thirty?_

Combeferre replies almost immediately. 

**i’ll pick you up at seven**

Enjolras sighs noisily - as it Combeferre can even hear him - and clicks his phone off. He eats the last bite of his sandwich, and picks his pen back up to carry on marking. 

*

That evening comes much faster than he had hoped it would. He had dragged out his marking, stayed at school until the first fingertips of dusk were tugging at the edges of the horizon, and driven home at a snail’s pace, stopping off for groceries that he didn’t need on the way home. 

Turning his key in the lock to open the door leaves him with a sinking feeling in his stomach. He shrugs his bag off his shoulder and onto the floor, and puts the groceries on the kitchen counter. He takes a long time to put them away, even though the kitchen clock is telling him that Combeferre will be here in forty-five minutes, and his stomach is reminding him that he hasn’t eaten since lunchtime. He takes an apple from the bottom of the near-empty grocery bag, washes it painstakingly, and slices it into pieces. Then, he washes up the knife and the chopping board, and dries them, puts them away in the right places, and folds the tea towel before he hangs it over the back of a chair. 

The invitation is still staring up at him from where it resides on the kitchen countertop. 

He supposes he should, at the very least, read it before he heads out with Combeferre and has to be grilled on every reason that he can possibly think of not to go. 

The invitation is very pretty, he supposes. He picks it up and turns it over, to get one more quick look at the photograph that Grantaire took. Marius and Cosette are still just as sickeningly gorgeous and in love as they were when he had left them. Paris, behind them, is at once familiar and strange to Enjolras. 

Grantaire has made the couple look even lovelier than they are - which Enjolras hadn’t thought possible - and there is love radiating from every inch of it, from the eyes of the two lovers, to the angle of the camera. It pains him a little to think of the three of them joking around as they took the photograph, of Grantaire’s warm laugh, the residue of a smile hanging on his lips as he clicked another photograph of Marius and Cosette mid-laugh. 

They had been two of the only ones to stay in Paris - along with Éponine and Grantaire. 

Often, Enjolras thinks he regrets that it was he who left first, but that is quickly quashed by the crippling guilt he feels for having swept them up in his irreverent idealism. It was only a matter of time, after that last protest, before they realised that their youth was so far behind them, that they were still living lives that had long left them behind. 

It had felt a lot like running away, at the time. He loves Nice, he really does - he loves the sea, and the sun, and he loves having Courf and Ferre so close by - but it is so far from Paris, and so far from the people he knew. They didn’t go far - Jehan and Bahorel moved to Rouen, barely two hours from the Musain, where they used to drink; and Bossuet, Joly, and Musichetta live above a bakery that Musichetta owns in the centre of Orléans. It had only been him, at the time, that had run to the other end of the country, and stayed put, had dug himself into his own little life here, with a job he likes and people he can call friends. 

Combeferre and Courfeyrac had followed not long afterwards, moving to Nice to take care of an elderly aunt of Courf’s. Enjolras appreciates that they stayed here, even after she passed away, though a part of him wonders if they are here to keep an eye on him. He doesn’t ever ask, partly because he can’t complain about living near his childhood best friends, and also because he’s not sure he could stand the guilt if they told him that they had stayed for him. 

He hadn’t quite intended not to stay in touch with everyone - and, indeed, he had, for the first few months. Cosette would FaceTime him to see how his physiotherapy was going, Joly would text him funny stories about patients they treated, but after a while he stopped being the one one to call, stopped replying to texts, and they seemed to understand. He told himself he was busy - new job, new town, new people - and, besides, once they didn’t have the Amis to tie them together, what did they really have in common? 

Truthfully, it became too hard to talk to them. After the protest that had shattered the bones in his right shin, and left so many of the others with broken and bruised limbs, a light had gone out within him. 

What had once impassioned him - all of them - had become destructive. To Enjolras, something that caused so much pain, both physical and mental, to those he loved, could no longer ignite a fire within him. Rather, the thought of planning new protests, campaigns, marches, had begun to fill him with a cold kind of dread. Organising became tiresome, and pointless, with him so exhausted from his physiotherapy, and from hiding how scared he was for himself, and for all of them. 

He remembered their last meeting - two months after the protest, and three weeks after he had come out of hospital, his leg strapped into a plaster, the bruising across his face barely healed, his just-healing hand in a soft splint. The pity and the worry on all their faces as he made his way into the Musain on his one crutch had been crushing. Cosette, her ever-perfect porcelain face marred by a yellowing black eye, Joly, leaning a little more heavily on their stick than usual, Musichetta, her arm in a sling. And Grantaire, his face covered in cuts and bruises, and still unable to meet Enjolras’ gaze. All of them, beaten up and battered, and yet saving their pity for him, he who had been the root of their pain. 

He had moved away less than a month later, Combeferre and Courfeyrac helping him pack his life into cardboard boxes with little questioning. 

And now here it was, an invitation not only to Marius and Cosette’s wedding, but back into his old life, back into the lives of the people he had pushed away, back to the city he had grown up in. 

The invite is on a cream-coloured card, with writing embossed in gold:

_**together with their families  
Euphrasie Cosette Valjean  
and  
Marius Pontmercy  
request the pleasure of your company at their marriage  
at the Pavillons de Bercy  
at two o’clock  
on Saturday 11th July** _

Enjolras sighs, and turns the invitation over once more to look at the photograph. There is a phone number at the bottom, and an email address, for him to send his RSVP to. In the corner, written in Cosette’s loopy black handwriting, reads:

_my dear Enjolras (plus guest!)_

He isn’t going to go, he knows that much. There is little point in putting himself through that pain, or ripping himself out of this half-life he has only just truly settled into. It is sweet of Cosette, though, to believe that he might have someone that he could possibly bring as a guest. It’s nice to know that someone out there still has faith in him. Regardless, he is already planning out the email that will constitute his reply in his head - he can’t bring himself to call, not now. 

**My dear Cosette,** for he misses her so, he truly does. **Congratulations on your engagement,** who else would have been the first to get married but them? The picture of happiness, since they first set eyes on each other across the hall in first year Poli-Sci. **I’m sorry that I won’t be able to make it,** and she would know, she would know that he had no reason not to come but his own fear, **but please send me your wedding registry,** just to offset a little of the guilt he feels at missing such a day. **I hope to see you soon,** though he knows he won’t, **and I wish you the best.**

What he isn’t quite sure how to plan out, however, is the explanation to Combeferre that he won’t be going. Ferre will see straight through any excuse of his, any complaint that he doesn’t have the time or the money or the wanting to go. Enjolras maintains the belief, however, that he will still be able to get out of going. Unless, that is, Courfeyrac comes to drinks tonight. While unlikely, it is a risk that still bothers him, because he knows that nothing will guilt-trip him quite like Courf’s pouting. 

*

When Combeferre pulls up outside his apartment at seven, Courfeyrac is not, to Enjolras’ absolute relief, sitting in the passenger seat. More than anything, he is glad he won’t have to sit in the back seat like a small child, while Combeferre and Courfeyrac hold hands over the console, and Combeferre checks on him in the rearview mirror as if he is worried that Enjolras is misbehaving back there. 

He puts on a jacket and takes his keys off the counter. As he does, he hesitates by the invite lying next to them. He bites his lip. He wavers for a moment, then takes the invite, and pins it up on the fridge with a magnet, in between a photograph of him and Courf and a flyer about the school summer fête. 

Combeferre is leaning out of the window with a soft smile on his face. He’s still wearing his work clothes, a blue patterned tie hanging loose around his neck. 

‘Hey, Enjolras,’ he says. It is nice, Enjolras thinks to himself, that Combeferre is always so comfortingly the same. His voice will never lose that soft lilt, his eyes will stay the same deep brown, he will always have those frown lines on his forehead from years of worrying about things that are far out of his control. 

‘No Courf tonight?’ Enjolras replies. 

‘Nah,’ Combeferre says, and leans over to open the door to the passenger side for Enjolras to get in. 

They drive to the bar in near-silence, the chatter of the radio a quiet hum, as Combeferre recounts occasional details about his week at work, and also a story about Courfeyrac and a stray cat. 

Neither broaches the subject of the wedding until later into the evening. Enjolras is three drinks in and just beginning to wonder if perhaps it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to bring it up, when Combeferre clears his throat, and asks. 

‘Are you going to Marius and Cosette’s wedding?’ 

‘No.’ Enjolras answers, plainly, and a little haughtily. That makes Combeferre laugh, for some reason. 

‘I’ll change the question. How long are you going to pretend you’re not going for?’ 

Enjolras opens his mouth to answer, then frowns, and closes it again. 

‘I’m not going to go.’ 

‘Really?’ Combeferre asks, deadpan. ‘You’re not going to your college best friend’s wedding?’ 

‘Key word there being ‘college’,’ Enjolras mutters.

‘She wants you there,’ Combeferre says, ‘I know you don’t want to see them all, but they want to see you.’ 

Enjolras sighs, dramatically, which prompts Combeferre to roll his eyes. 

‘I’m not going,’ Enjolras says, again, ‘it’s… I don’t need to see them again. They don’t need to see me. It’s fine.’ He knows the alcohol is beginning to make him babble, but he finds he simply doesn’t care. 

‘You can’t seriously think you’ll never see them again.’

‘Why not?’ Enjolras shrugs. ‘I won’t.’ 

‘You really think that? You think it ends here?’ Combeferre asks, incredulously. 

Enjolras scoffs. ‘What, like Cosette and Marius are gonna get married again in two years time? I’m gonna have to go to their vow renewal?’ He snorts. ‘No thank you.’ 

Combeferre laughs, but there is little humour behind it. ‘We’re twenty-eight, Enjolras. I know you haven’t exactly settled down, but everyone else has.’

His hand moves slightly towards him, as though he is going for something in his pocket. ‘I’m thinking about proposing to Courf.’ 

Enjolras manages to drop his jaw in shock, just as his heart mimics the motion and plummets to the bottom of his stomach. 

‘No way!’ he says, and reaches a hand out across the table. It doesn’t quite reach, but the sentiment is there, that, had they been sitting next to each other, he would have patted Combeferre on the back. ‘Congratulations.’ 

‘Alright, alright,’ Combeferre says. Even in the low light, Enjolras can see that he’s blushing. ‘I haven’t proposed yet.’ 

Combeferre smiles, and then takes a sip of his drink. When he places it down, he sighs, and looks up at Enjolras. 

‘But you realise that means you’ll see everyone at the wedding,’ Combeferre says, ‘whenever that is. And at Jehan and Bahorel’s, and at Joly and Bossuet and Chetta’s.’ 

It’s almost painful, listening to him list all of these people, but Enjolras bows his head a little, and lets him talk. He feels oddly like a child being chastised by a teacher, which feels kind of ironic. 

‘Even Éponine’s settled down, apparently. Feuilly’s got a girlfriend, according to Grantaire.’ 

Enjolras likes to think that Combeferre doesn’t notice the way his hand tightens around his drink at the mention of Grantaire’s name, though he suspects that such hoping is futile. If he does, he grants Enjolras the courtesy not to mention it. 

‘And what about you, Enj? I know it’s far away, but what are you gonna do when you get married?’ 

‘If,’ Enjolras grumbles, quietly. Combeferre ignores him. 

‘Who do you invite? Your work friends?’ 

‘Alright, I get it,’ Enjolras snaps, a little more aggressively than he had intended. 

Combeferre sighs. ‘They’re still your friends. No matter how long you go without speaking to them.’ 

Now it really feels like he’s being told off. He downs the last of his drink in one go, if anything, just to buy himself a few seconds. 

‘I’ll go,’ Enjolras says finally, ‘but I’m not coming in the car with you and Courf.’ 

‘That’s understandable,’ Combeferre nods, and raises his glass. Enjolras toasts him with his own empty glass.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grantaire looks up a split second before it happens, and he hadn’t even realised that he’d been keeping an eye on the door all night long. 
> 
> The door to the bar swings open, and Enjolras is standing in the doorway, suitcase in hand, and he is radiating light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no see! had a sudden burst of fixation on this fic so hopefully will update a bit more regularly. famous last words  
> small content warning for mentioned police violence/smoking/drug use all as mild as i could but take care x

As he had sworn, Enjolras does not travel in the car with Combeferre and Courfeyrac. Instead, he books a train ticket from Nice straight to Paris, no changes, lunch included. 

Courf tries, and fails, to convince him that nine hours in the car with the two of them will be much more fun than nine hours alone on a train - not to mention cheaper - but to no avail. Enjolras refuses, point-blank, and he doesn’t even try to sugar-coat it. Courf pouts and promises not to be so annoying, but they don’t push it too much. They know, by now, that Enjolras is stubborn about certain things, and they accept that he is not always rational. 

His train leaves on Thursday morning - three days later than Courf and Ferre, who drove up to Paris on Monday in time for Marius’ bachelor party on Tuesday night. From the texts he received from Courf, he judges that it was a rather lively affair for the usually tame Marius. Several blurred photographs show Courf and Marius taking body shots off of each other, while several blurs in the background tip their heads back and laugh. He thinks he can recognise Grantaire’s dark hair, and stocky build, but he’s not quite sure. 

He packs his bags on Wednesday night, and spends rather longer on it than he had intended to. It is remarkably hard, he finds, to pack for a three-night trip back to the city that once held your entire life in its hands. 

It hits him, very suddenly, like a blow to the chest, and he has to take a moment to sit down on the edge of his bed with a pair of blue striped socks in his hands. He is going back to Paris, the city of his childhood, their adolescence, the city in which he first scraped his knee, rode a bike, got a detention, fell in love, drove a car, had a drink, broke up with a boyfriend, cried into Cosette’s shoulder. The city where he had his first day of school and his last. The city he had thought he would live in forever. The city he had thought he _could_ live in forever - until that idea became suddenly so preposterous and intangible that it now seems stupid to have ever thought as much in the first place. 

Three years away suddenly feel like nothing. He can feel that raw fear as though it is a fresh-cut wound. 

He stands up again, and tucks the socks inside his dress shoes, then puts those in his suitcase. 

*

To say that he barely sleeps that night would be, he supposes, a little of an overstatement. He does sleep, albeit fitfully, and never for more than an hour or two at a time. It is not that he is jolted awake - no, it is more like a dipping in and out of sleeping and waking, of forgetting and remembering that he is about to lift this tired, overworked, downtrodden body into the worst situation it could possibly fathom. 

Eventually, he drags himself out of bed a half hour before his alarm is set to go off. It is still dark outside, and he feels uncomfortable all over, like he is covered in a layer of pins, jabbing into him ever so slightly every time he moves, as if intent on ensuring that he does not forget that today is the most terrifying day he has had to endure in many years. 

He dresses with heavy, clumsy hands, and picks up his suitcase. When he lugs it down the stairs, he wonders if someone has snuck into his room and filled it with dumbbells, for it suddenly seems to weigh several tonnes more than it did last night. His body feels remarkably the same way. 

He makes himself breakfast and puts it in a brown paper bag, and his coffee in a red reusable cup, and then he sits at the kitchen table and stares at a spot on the wall for he doesn’t know how long. Glances up at the clock every few minutes keep him on track, and, finally, when the clock hits nine-thirty, he hauls himself up from the table and leaves. 

He breezes through the station in something of a daze, just barely making it onto the train at twenty-five past ten. He makes the change a half hour later at Antibes, and settles down into a not-quite-comfortable seat for the six-hour ride into Paris. 

For a while, he tries to read. It’s a good book, and one he’s been longing to catch up on whenever he had a free moment from school and marking. It doesn’t work, though. He’s quite glad that the carriage is almost empty, and nobody can see him where he is sat. His knee is bouncing, and his fingers are tapping against the edge of the window, and he can’t stop fidgeting, and his breathing is shaky and uneven no matter how hard he tries to concentrate on slowing it to a steady pace. 

He finds himself, as he so often does, running through the fractured memories he still has of the protest. It feels almost as if he should capitalise it in his mind, give it some significance even in the words he uses when he thinks of it. 

He thinks of the soaring hope they had to begin with, that raging adrenaline that always took charge of him, of blisters on his hands from holding up signs taped to rough wooden sticks, of the soreness in his feet from standing on them all day, of his friends faces, so bright in a sea of thousands. He thinks of Jehan, flowers in their hair, sitting on the roadside for a smoke break, joining in with the chanting in between drags. He thinks of Grantaire, sitting next to them, stealing the cigarette out of their hands and laughing. 

He thinks of the crowd, of the way they looked up at him with expectancy and hope and trust and eagerness. He thinks of the noise, of the roaring and the yelling and the chanting, the way he had stirred them up into a frenzy that had filled him with fiery joy and anger and satisfaction. He thinks of Courf, megaphone in hand, starting up new chants when the old ones died away, their hand always, always linked to Combeferre’s. 

He thinks of the crowd, of the way that it wrenched them apart, tore at joined hands and stole his friends from his line of sight. He thinks of the noise, of the hooves against the pavement, of the screaming and the shots in the distance, of the sickeningly familiar slamming of plastic shields against bodies.

He thinks of Cosette, her chin jutted upwards in defiance, inches from a clear plastic barrier, snarling, but not ugly, for she could never be ugly, not even with bruises across her face from the impact when she yelled too loudly. 

He thinks of Bossuet, cradling Musichetta close to him, as she pushed him away, insisting she was fine even as she swayed on her feet. 

He thinks of Grantaire’s hand closing around his arm, pulling him sharply, just a fraction of a second too late. He thinks of the sharp impact on his leg. He thinks of the cry that he heard, that could have come from his own lips but could just as easily have been from Grantaire’s. He thinks of the soft thudding of his body against the ground, of the impact at his head and his arm, near-painless, as sounds became fuzzy and the world began to spin. He thinks of his name being shouted, over and over and over. 

He thinks of the pavement, cool and hard and rough beneath him, as he dragged his fingertips along the surface. He thinks of the warm wetness when he lifted his fingers to the pain at his temple, and of the red stain across them when he brought them into his sight. 

He thinks of the sky, cloudless and blue, of the buildings leaving shadows behind them as they moved and swayed. He thinks of the face above his, of frantic dark eyes and a crooked nose, and a mouth moving incessantly, and how he lifted a hand up to it, to stop it from worrying, because he was fine, he was okay, he could barely feel anything at all, and his fingertips left a red mark against Grantaire’s lips, and Grantaire took his hand and held fast, and turned his head and opened his mouth, but no sound came out except a faint ringing that echoed round and round and round Enjolras’ head. 

The train grinds to a halt at some rural station halfway to Paris. Enjolras grits his teeth. He has revisited that day so many times in dreams that he is no longer quite sure what is truth and what is conjured from the darkest depths of his own mind. It is one thing for it to haunt his dreams, but another for it to creep into his daytimes, as it has done increasingly since his receiving that fateful gold-embossed invitation. 

He closes his eyes, and breathes steadily through his nose. The train slowly picks up its pace again, and he doesn’t quite give in to the rhythmic motions as they speed through the countryside, but he tries to. 

*

He is waiting at the taxi rank outside the station, and it is a quarter past six. If he gets in a cab now, he can ask the cab driver for a recommendation and be at a B&B within the hour. He takes out his phone, just as he manages to hail a taxi. 

His heart sinks, just a little, to see the text from Courf. 

_ur trainn got in at 6 right ???_

**5.54, actually.**

_we r at the musin  
musn  
MUSAIN  
come and drink with us!!!!!_

Enjolras doesn’t want to this about exactly who is included when Courf says _us_. 

He is hardly surprised that Courf is already incoherently drunk. He tries to type with one hand as the cab driver helps him put his suitcase in the trunk, and he sort of regrets having replied at all. 

He really regrets it when his phone screen changes, and he is suddenly accosted with a close-up photo of Courf’s face, and the option to either decline or accept the call. His finger wavers over the red button, but the cab driver is slamming the trunk shut and looking at him a little impatiently. He accepts the call. 

‘Hi, Courf,’ he says, tiredly. 

‘Enjolras!’ Courf yells, so loudly Enjolras has to hold the phone a little away from his ear. ‘Are you on your way yet?’ 

‘Uh - ’ Enjolras opens the door to the cab, and gets in. ‘I don’t know, Courf, I have to find somewhere to stay - ’

‘Oh, come and have some _fun_!’ Courf slurs. 

‘You and I have very different definitions of ‘fun’,’ Enjolras mutters. Courf either doesn’t hear him or ignores him. 

‘Everyone’s here,’ Courf says, and Enjolras can practically hear them pouting, ‘and they all want to see you - hey - ’ Courf’s voice gets a little fainter. ‘Tell Enjolras you want him to come!’ 

Enjolras can practically imagine Courf stood on the bar, holding out their phone at the crowd of all of his old friends. 

He hears a loud yell, mingled shouts telling him to _just come_ and to _loosen up a bit, boss!_

‘I - I’ll see, Courf,’ Enjolras says. ‘No promises.’ 

He hangs up without waiting for an answer. His heart is thudding against his ribs, already sent spiralling by the very sound of so many people he had hoped not to see again, not yet, not until he was ready. He certainly isn’t ready now. 

He thinks of their voices, a cacophony so loud and so warm and so full of love that it makes his chest hurt. It hurts to know that they want to see him, that they are seemingly welcoming him back despite what he has done to them. He hadn’t been able to pick out any of the voices, and perhaps that makes it hurt more, that they seem so cohesive, that they are still one. 

He thinks of the one voice that he had been straining to hear, the one voice that he had been listening out for even without conscious intent to. Maybe he’s not even going to be there. That would be worse, he thinks. His absence would be worse than anything. 

The cab driver is tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. He looks at Enjolras i’m the rearview mirror. ‘Where to?’

Enjolras bites his lip. ‘You know the Musain?’ 

‘The bar?’ the cab driver asks, ‘by Rue Plumet?’ Enjolras nods. ‘Sure do.’ 

The driver smiles at him in the rearview, and makes a left turn. Enjolras sits back in his seat and bounces his knee. 

*

Grantaire doesn’t say anything when Courfeyrac stands on the bar and proclaims that they have Enjolras on the phone. He does, however, offer Courf a hand to help them down off the bar once Enjolras has hung up on them. 

Everyone is buzzing already, two drinks in and giddy on the high of having them all back in one place for the first time in years. He’s missed this, missed them - all individually, of course, but also as a group, this excited energy, the love coursing through them all, love that he had not known still resided in the alcohol-poisoned depths of his heart. 

The mention of Enjolras only sets them off even more, because he’s _here_ , he’s in Paris for the first time in three years, and he may as well have fallen off the face of the Earth for all any of them have heard from him, but none of that matters any more, because the love they all have for him and for each other comes before it all. Grantaire isn’t sure that’s exactly how he feels, but he knows that’s how Jehan would put it. 

Grantaire orders another soda, and takes Courf’s packet of pretzels out of the back pocket of their jeans without them even noticing. He leans against a wall at the back of the room and watches them for a moment, allows himself, even for a moment, to be unburdened. The pretzels are slightly stale and the ice in his glass is making his hand feel numb. None of that matters right now. 

He tries not to think of Enjolras, but only half-heartedly. 

If he’s at the Gare du Nord now, it’ll take him half an hour to get here by métro, and a little longer by cab, accounting for traffic. The old Enjolras would’ve got the métro, but he has a strange feeling that the Enjolras he remembers is not going to be the one that he sees this weekend - whether that may be in half an hour, or at the wedding on Saturday, he doesn’t yet know. 

In the back of his mind, Grantaire had sort of known that Enjolras was going to show up. 

He’s too good of a man not to - not that he has shown himself to be a particularly good friend the last few years, but objectively, that wasn’t his fault, Grantaire knows. 

He wouldn’t miss this, though. He wouldn’t miss the wedding for Cosette’s sake, for Marius’, for the sake of all of them worrying about why he didn’t come. 

A part of him wonders if he’s come for him. 

Not _for_ him, of course - he’s not fucking stupid enough to convince himself of that - but because nobody is quite sure of what happened between the two of them. In all honesty, Grantaire includes himself in that. But he knows that they wonder, human as they are, that they speculate and that it borders on gossip. If Enjolras had decided not to show up this weekend, he would have been pursued by a delicate trail of wondering whether their fighting had kept Enjolras away, whether their falling out was so bad he couldn’t bear to return. 

Grantaire looks up a split second before it happens, and he hadn’t even realised that he’d been keeping an eye on the door all night long. 

The door to the bar swings open, and Enjolras is standing in the doorway, suitcase in hand, and he is radiating light. 

Grantaire has often, when many drinks deep on the balcony at Jehan’s, the two of them passing a joint between them, wondered aloud whether it was like this for everyone, whether everyone saw this light exuding from him. It was at once glaring and otherworldly, the light surrounding an _archange_ , an archangel, unfit to be looked upon by mortal eyes, but also invitingly warm, a fire in the hearth of a childhood home, the glow at the wick of a candle that refused to burn out. 

Jehan would usually nod sagely, and listen, and take another hit, knowing that it was not for them to interject. 

Well, it’s good to know that Enjolras hasn’t lost it, he supposes. 

He looks different, even from across the room. He looks worried, scared, even, and his shoulders are hunched a little more than they used to be, and his gaze is not quite as steady. 

This does not seem to matter to anyone else in the bar, though. There are several people already allowing their gaze to flick up and down Enjolras as he stands in the doorway, nudging friends, marking out territory. It makes Grantaire’s chest constrict to watch. 

It does not seem to matter to their friends, either. Courf hangs back at the bar and allows the people Enjolras has not seen in years to jump on him, to hug him and kiss his cheeks and ruffle his hair and buy him his first drink. 

Enjolras’ gaze, is still moving, still roving over the room, darting back and forth between the people he is talking to and the room at large. 

It is only upon Grantaire, quite comfortable skulking in the shadows furthest from the doorway, that Enjolras’ gaze comes to rest. 

Grantaire meets it, and tilts his head a little to the side. He wonders if he has yet burst into flame. He raises his glass of soda in a toast to Enjolras.

Enjolras blinks, and looks away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m on tumblr @weisenbachfelded come say hi! at some point i will make a post for this fic so u can reblog that too :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello to u all i hope ur enjoying this fic as much as i am writing it bcos goddamn am i enjoying writing it  
> mild cw for drinking/smoking pretty continuously through this chapter

For just a moment, when Enjolras steps in the door, and he is bombarded by half a dozen of his friends, and they are laughing and giddy, he feels suddenly filled with hope. 

He doesn’t realise that he is searching until he has found him, until his gaze comes to rest upon him, standing in the back in the shadows, a drink in his hand. It is too dark to see, but he thinks that Grantaire is looking at him. He thinks that he is smiling, just a little. 

Grantaire tilts his head slightly to one side, and raises his glass up as if he is making a toast. Enjolras feels his heart plummet to the bottom of his stomach, and looks quickly away. 

He turns his attention back to his friends, surrounding him, hardly more than blurs of excitement. He tries with all his might to breathe them in, to see them as they are now, as they are different. 

‘Enjolras, let me get you a drink,’ Bossuet says, and claps him on the back before hurrying over to the bar. Bossuet looks more comfortable somehow, and he has a rosiness to his cheeks, a roundness to his face that tells Enjolras that he is happy. 

‘Tell us what you’ve been up to!’ Jehan calls, from where they are sitting nearby. Their locs have grown even longer, and they have them piled up on top of their head. They have a new piercing, in their septum, a shiny gold ring. 

‘Pass your suitcase over,’ Bahorel says, and takes it before he can reply. His hair is at a funny length that tells Enjolras that he had perhaps recently had a buzzcut that he is now in the process of growing out. He has deeper lines at the sides of his eyes than he used to, and at the sides of his mouth, remnants of many thousands of smiles. 

‘Have you eaten?’ Joly asks. They have a different cane to the one Enjolras remembers, and new glasses. 

Someone else speaks to him, there is a hand on his shoulder and a laugh in his ear. His head spins. 

‘Is Cosette here?’ he finds himself saying, and he can barely feel his own mouth moving. 

Before he can register his friends moving away, or her coming over, Cosette is there, and she is positively glowing. When she sees him, she beams and rushes to him, sweeping him up in a bone-crushing hug. He feels every muscle in his body relax, and he wraps his arms around her. 

‘Welcome back,’ she whispers into his ear. 

‘I missed you,’ he says, as she pulls away, her hands still on his upper arms, holding him at arms length so that she can get a better look at him. She looks lighter, more willowy and more breezy than she had done before. Her dark hair comes down just past her shoulders, and there is gold shadow swept across her eyelids. She has her nails painted shell-pink. 

‘What’s this?’ she says, disdainfully, plucking at his sweater vest with two delicate fingers. 

‘Hey!’ he protests, swiping at her hands, ‘I like this vest!’ It is grey, cable-knit, and comfortable. 

She laughs, and the sound is even sweeter than he remembers. ‘It’s different,’ she says, ‘I like it. Come sit down and have a drink?’ 

He nods, and follows her to a table in a corner, where almost all of their friends are sitting. 

He takes a seat next to Combeferre, and Bahorel slides him that drink that he promised him across the table, and he sips on it, taking just a moment to try and unfurl the clenching in his stomach, to try and take in the people surrounding him. It all feels a bit much, a bit too disconcerting, to see all of these people just slightly different to the way he remembers them. 

Marius has his arm around Cosette already, and he is beaming with that same radiance that she is. Love, he supposes he should call it. Gross. Marius is, if it is physically possible, even more freckly than he had been before. He looks remarkably the same, still young and rather permanently confused. 

On Marius’ left, Joly is in between Bossuet and Musichetta, both of whom have their arms around them. Musichetta is leant back in her seat, laughing at something Bossuet just said. She has her hair wrapped up in fabric, tied in a knot like a flower at the front. Her lipstick matches her top, and her nail polish matches her headwrap. In many ways, the three of them have changed very little. 

Cosette turns, and calls to Éponine and Grantaire, who are laughing with their heads bent close in the corner. 

‘Are you gonna say hello to Enjolras?’ she says, and smiles. Enjolras clenches his jaw to keep from shaking. He bounces his leg beneath the table. Éponine says something quietly to Grantaire, which he laughs at, but his eyes dart quickly over to Enjolras as he does. Enjolras wants the ground to swallow him whole. 

They come and sit - Éponine next to Courf, where she can take sips of their drink, and Grantaire next to her, directly opposite. 

Enjolras takes a long drink from his glass. When he sets it down, he makes the mistake of looking up and across the table, and he feels his heart freeze, halted mid-beat. 

Grantaire is looking down at his hands, while people on both sides of him talk amongst themselves. It makes it look as though he has been singled out, placed beneath a spotlight. 

For the first time, Enjolras has a real view of Grantaire, and oh, he looks even better than he had remembered him. It is barely surprising to him that his memory had served him so poorly, especially with regards to Grantaire. He had so little need for images; his mind had never worked that way. It was quite unlike the meticulous pictures Grantaire held in his own mind’s eye of each of his memories, ready to transfer onto a page of a sketchbook at a moment’s notice. 

No, Enjolras had never been one to have mental pictures that served anyone justice, and especially not Grantaire. Now that he is in front of him, he cannot quite line up what it is that he has misremembered, what bits of Grantaire are different to the one that he has kept so close to his heart for the last three years. 

The soft red and blue lights of the bar cast Grantaire’s features in soft colours, marking out the lines and angles of his face, bathing him in a glow of colour that makes him seem almost alien. 

‘Alright, Enjolras,’ Bossuet says, smacking the table excitedly with his hands. His rings click against the wooden tabletop. ‘Tell us what you’ve been up to.’ A few people clamour in agreement. Enjolras tears his gaze hastily away from Grantaire, and tries to remember how to form words. 

‘I’m - well -’ he feels himself flush bright pink ‘I’m good. I’m okay.’ 

‘Oh, come on,’ Jehan rolls their eyes fondly, ‘we deserve more than that. Tell us about the job, the house, the town, the people - the boyfriend!’ They wiggle their eyebrows at this last. Enjolras takes a sip of his drink and keeps his eyes firmly away from Grantaire, terrified that his gaze will drift over to him of its own accord. 

‘The town is - it’s really great. I’ve got an apartment near the seafront, and, uh - that’s nice.’ He is very aware of his stammering, very aware of the fact that these people, out of anyone, are the ones who expect eloquence from him, who expect his words to be no less than captivating, his every sentence purposeful. He is very aware that they are not. 

‘No boyfriend,’ he says, with a shaky laugh. ‘I might get a cat, though.’ Everyone laughs a little at that, and Enjolras pretends that he isn’t listening out for Grantaire’s, pretends his can’t recognise the exact timbre of his low chuckle. 

‘We should move near the sea,’ Jehan says, wistfully. 

‘Do you really mean that?’ Bahorel says, disdainfully. 

Jehan makes a face at their partner and shakes their head. ‘No, not really. It would be nice in theory, I think.’

‘We’ll go in the summer,’ Bahorel says. Jehan beams, and tucks themself closer Bahorel, and then presses a kiss to their cheek. Enjolras doesn’t realise he’s staring at the two of them until Joly clears their throat, and asks, 

‘What are you doing as a job, again?’ 

Enjolras feels himself go a little more red in the face. ‘I’m a teacher.’ 

The entire table bursts into giddy laughter, spurred on by alcohol, slapping hands on thighs and on the tabletop. 

‘Brilliant, Enjolras. Hey, tell another one!’ Bahorel says, making a show of wiping tears of laughter from his eyes. 

‘What do you teach?’ Joly asks, ignoring the others’ laughter. 

‘Humanities,’ Enjolras says, as the laughter dies down, and everyone begins exchanging looks that he is largely uninterested in deciphering. ‘History, mainly. Some Geography when they don’t have anyone else to teach it. Not Politics, though. I don’t trust myself.’ 

Grantaire laughs at that, his head bending down as he does so, and then he takes a long drink of whatever it is that he has in his cup. Enjolras watches from the corner of his eye, his gaze tracing the line of Grantaire’s throat as his head tilts back. 

‘Geography?’ Musichetta says, with a laugh. ‘You can’t tell Brittany from Bordeaux on a map, Enjolras!’

‘Smart move not teaching Politics,’ Éponine says, raising her glass with a smile, ‘you’d have the kids revolting against the teachers.’ 

Everyone laughs at that, Enjolras included, and it almost feels like everything is normal. 

‘Leave poor Enjolras alone,’ Cosette says, but she is laughing too. ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she continues, and leans across the table to cover his hand with hers. He takes it, and squeezes it gently, comfortingly. ‘I’m glad you’re all here,’ she says to the table at large, and Courf starts off a toast to the happy couple, quickly drawing the attention away from Enjolras, who all but sighs in relief. 

*

The evening stretches slowly on - much more slowly than Enjolras would like. Outside, the daylight slips away with little show, just a moment of glowing orange before night begins to draw in. In a way, it makes him feel trapped, being here under cover of night. 

He declines a third drink when Courf offers. Combeferre frowns at him sideways, a quick check that he is alright. He nods, just a little, and Combeferre, seemingly satisfied, continues his conversation with Musichetta. 

He hears a little of what his friends are saying - Feuilly is coming up from Bordeaux tonight, with his girlfriend, who is called Adèle, or something; Éponine is moving in with her girlfriend, Gabrielle, who’ll be there tomorrow; Bahorel’s sister is engaged; Joly just got a promotion.

He thinks that he manages to react accordingly, offering his congratulations and his smiles and his laughs where he thinks it appropriate, but it is difficult to tell, when his mind is so otherwise occupied. 

Try as he might, he cannot stop his eyes from drifting towards Grantaire. He gives silent thanks that Grantaire is engaged in conversation, and seems to have much else on his mind other than looking at him. It gives him a little time to look, to take in everything about him, everything that he has so sorely missed, and has wished he would never have to come face-to-face with again. 

He still smiles with that same crooked carelessness, still lets laughs fall from his lips the way he always used to let wine fall between them. There is soda in his glass tonight, he thinks. He looks older, but no less handsome, his features no less striking - his brow still heavy, his nose still crooked from being broken one too many times, his jaw still angular, his eyes still dark and thoughtful. Enjolras thinks he has a few grey hairs, a few new lines on his face, but he can’t be quite sure in this light. The thought of that makes him feel a little agitated, rather like he is excited to see him in the daylight and find out. He has a few days’ worth of stubble along his jawline, a small silver hoop in one ear, and a silver chain round his neck. Enjolras wants, so much that it hurts. 

‘I’m gonna take a quick smoke break,’ Grantaire says, and Enjolras tears his eyes quickly away from him. ‘Anyone coming?’ He looks pointedly at Éponine, but she has a shot glass in one hand, and is toasting it with Courf. She ignores him, and he rolls his eyes. 

He is acutely aware that Enjolras is staring down into his glass. Perhaps, if he wills it with enough conviction, Enjolras will hear him, and look up, and he will be, yet again, able to feel that sadistic ache in his chest when their eyes meet, as they have been doing over and over this evening. Whether by chance or not, he is not entirely certain.

*

Outside, it is just a little cold, the warmth of the June night not quite enough to stop him feeling the chill in just a t-shirt and jeans. He sort of wishes that he had brought his jacket out with him, but he also knows he looks damn good in this t-shirt, and he’s still not averse to the option of getting laid tonight. 

He leans against the wall and lights a cigarette, watching the other people who are out here for a smoke as he does. Try as he might to pay attention to them, to listen in to their conversations like the nosy fucker he is, he finds himself drawn back to him. 

What else did he expect? It had been nothing but a roundabout journey back to Enjolras ever since he met him, and now that he is back here, back in Paris, back sitting opposite him at the Musain, and he is back here again, back with Enjolras thrumming through his veins. He tells himself that like it hasn’t been the same in the three years since he left Paris. 

It’s not as though he’s been only taking blonds to bed, or crying into old photos - he’s not that pathetic - but he has thought of him far often than he would like to admit. His sketchbooks are, as they have always been, intermittently dotted with him, eyes and hands and side profiles and curls. The Enjolras on the pages of his sketchbook is still the person he had known three years ago, though. He is not the person sitting inside the Musain now, staring down into his drink and laughing mechanically when somebody makes a joke. 

When he last saw him, his hair had been longer, just past his shoulders. He almost always used to have it tied up - in a bun, in a braid, in messy pigtails done by Jehan’s hand and with flowers woven through them. He has cut his hair, now, so it is short at the sides, and still longer and curly on top. Grantaire likes it, no more or less than he had liked his hair before, because it is still attached to the same Enjolras. It makes his face look a little different, although that is perhaps aided by three years more of age, and of life experience. His long hair had always made him look elfin, more otherworldly, whereas now, when combined with the weariness of his face, the lines on his forehead, he looks like he belongs in this mortal realm rather more than he used to. 

The age on his face, the signs of wear, do not make him look any less attractive. He is, in Grantaire’s humble opinion, about halfway to finding that worn sort of attractiveness that people have in middle-age. Enjolras has this sort of weary maturity about him that makes Grantaire feel a little weak in the knees - not that that feeling is anything new. 

He likes the sweater vest, as well. He thinks it’s kind of cute, even if he does want to tease Enjolras about it until he’s blue in the face and Enjolras is swearing never to wear it again. Cosette would probably call the outfit nerd-chic, though that is perhaps a shade too innocent for the way that the rolled up sleeves of his dress shirt make Grantaire feel. He takes a long drag of his cigarette, and taps off the ash from the end.

Enjolras has about him, he thinks, a sense that he is somewhat diminished from what Grantaire remembers. 

Actually, that isn’t quite true. Grantaire does remember a tiredness to Enjolras, right at the end. It had kicked in after that fateful protest, that loss of drive, of motivation, of fire within him that propelled him forwards, and dragged the rest of them with him. 

This Enjolras looks weary, and deflated, in the sense that he has not been cared for, neither by himself, nor by another. He looks tired, the kind of tired that lingers for far longer than a single day after a bad night’s sleep. He avoids people’s gaze, and when he smiles, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

It’s not as though Grantaire expected him to come in all ablaze, immediately striking up a fight - only he didn’t expect it to be quite so different. He finds himself yearning to strike up an argument, if only just to check that the fire still lights up in Enjolras’ eyes, to check that his fists still clench at his sides, to check that his mouth still forms that same snarl. God, he misses it. 

*

There is a lull in the conversation. Enjolras can feel himself becoming more and more jittery. He can’t stop looking at the door, itching for Grantaire to step over the threshold. It is only a matter of moments, he knows, before the conversation takes its natural turn back to him. The thought makes him feel a little sick. 

Suddenly, he feels his phone begin to buzz in his pocket. He pulls it out, and feels a flood of relief that he can use this as his excuse to take his leave for a moment. 

‘Sorry, I should really take this,’ he says, and gets up from his seat, making towards the door and pretending to answer the call. 

He doesn’t need to take it - not at all, because it’s Mme. Marienne, the Art teacher, who sometimes calls him by accident when she’s drunk, because her ex-boyfriend’s name is Enrique, and their names are next to each other alphabetically in her phone. 

He makes a beeline for the door, and he’s hardly even thinking of it as he does so. He pauses, just for a moment, at the door, pressing the _decline_ button on his phone at the same time that he brings it up to his ear, feigning the call just in case somebody back at the table is still watching him. 

Moving so that they can no longer see him, he hangs back at the doorway, looking to the side as he tucks his phone back into his pocket. 

Grantaire is, as Enjolras had expected, leaning against the wall out front. There are a few other people there, too, but they are distant, on their phones or talking to friends as they smoke. 

Grantaire has his cigarette between his forefinger and his middle finger. He hadn’t brought his jacket, and he’s standing there in just jeans and a tight black tee, that makes Enjolras’ head spin and his heart feel rather frantic. Enjolras watches as he blows smoke out into the night air with his head tilted upwards, looking up and out as if he is stargazing. He wavers for a brief moment, following Grantaire’s hand as it carries the cigarette back to his mouth and the end disappears between his lips. 

Before he can come to a decision as to whether he wants to go out or not, Grantaire turns his head sharply, and smiles crookedly. 

‘Enjolras,’ he says, and _fuck_ , Enjolras has missed the way he says his name, the low warmth of his voice, the slight teasing behind it. A part of him had wished he would never have to hear it again, but, now that he has, he finds himself longing to over and over. 

‘Grantaire,’ he says, and he hopes to high heaven that his voice remains even and nonchalant. 

‘You looking for me or getting away from them?’ Grantaire asks, straight to the point as he always is. Enjolras laughs, quietly, more of a rushed exhale than a laugh. 

‘Courf’s doing tequila shots,’ Enjolras says, and it’s not an answer to Grantaire’s question, but it does make him wince sympathetically. 

‘Good to get out while you can,’ he says, and they both laugh a little, before going quiet. Grantaire finishes his cigarette and lights another one almost immediately. 

‘You cut your hair,’ Grantaire says bluntly, more to fill the silence than anything else, and he feels a little stupid. Enjolras runs a self-conscious hand through his hair. 

‘Yeah,’ he says, and sounds a little nervous. ‘Just before I started teaching. It’s kind of stupid, but - kids can be mean. Didn’t want to be known as the weird teacher with the long hair.’ 

‘Gay commie teacher with the sweater vests was alright, though?’ Grantaire says, and he knows he’s pushing his luck with how much he can tease him this soon; he’s scared that he’s lost his edge, lost that knowledge of the way that he and Enjolras work. 

But it seems he has not, because Enjolras presses his lips together in the way that he always has done when he’s trying not to laugh, when he’s trying to look annoyed. And it doesn’t work, it never has done, and he bursts out laughing, and the sound makes Grantaire feel something that he has not felt in more than three years, a lightweight kind of relief, the briefest reprieve from whatever the day’s aches and pains have brought him. 

There is something missing, he knows - a certain gleam in Enjolras’ eye, a certain joy to his laughter. That had already begun to dissipate in those last few weeks before Enjolras had left Paris, but it still leaves Grantaire feeling a hollow kind of sadness to know that Enjolras has not been able to regain it in the new life that he leads, so far away. 

‘Teaching’s good, then?’ Grantaire says, when they have dissolved once more into silence. 

‘Don’t be so mean,’ Enjolras replies, and tries to stop himself from smiling at the familiar gleam in Grantaire’s eye. 

‘I’m not!’ Grantaire protests. ‘I bet it suits you. I bet the kids love you.’ 

‘They’re great,’ Enjolras shrugs, and ducks his head a little to hide the light blush he knows is tinging his cheeks. ‘How’s - how’s art?’ 

Grantaire laughs at that, properly, and he shakes his head. ‘It’s good,’ he says, ‘and by that, I mean I’m barely making a living, but I like it.’ Enjolras nods, and smiles. He and Grantaire have never managed to grasp this whole small-talk deal, never quite gotten it under their wing. They can’t quite seem to slip back into whatever it is that they’d had before, either, and Enjolras doesn’t know what it is that he’s supposed to do to get rid of this stale air between them. 

‘Joly mentioned you’re sober,’ Enjolras says, because Grantaire makes his head swim and his chest ache and, apparently, sends all rationality flying out of the window, rendering him incapable of actually asking an appropriate question about the three years of Grantaire’s life that he has missed. 

‘Mm,’ Grantaire hums, ‘coming up on two years, now. Could never kick this, though.’ He takes his cigarette between two fingers, holds it up as though he is examining it, and exhales, a long line of smoke fanning out before him. 

‘Wish I’d never given up,’ Enjolras says, gloomily. Grantaire laughs at that, and puts his cigarette back between his lips, talking around it, as he reaches into his pocket. 

‘Bad habits die hard, or whatever they say,’ he says, and flips open his pack of cigarettes, holding it out towards him. Enjolras pauses for a moment, and then takes one.

‘When in Paris,’ he says, ‘or whatever they say.’ He puts the cigarette in his mouth, and reaches instinctively to his pocket for a lighter that has not been there for over three years. 

Before he can say anything, Grantaire has raised his own lighter to Enjolras’ mouth. Enjolras leans forward a little, holding the cigarette in place with two fingers. The flame of the lighter flares up, and Grantaire’s hand is so close to Enjolras’ face, so nearly brushing against him. The end of Enjolras’ cigarette glows bright orange, and Grantaire flips the lighter shut again, and stows it in his pocket. 

Enjolras takes a deep breath in, and for a moment he thinks that he is going to cough, but then his lungs are burning with smoke and he feels his shoulders drop a little of their tension, and he almost laughs with the way it makes him feel so relieved. 

‘Fuck, that’s good,’ he says, as he breathes smoke out into the air. 

Grantaire smiles, crookedly, his head tilted to one side. Enjolras looks suddenly younger, leaning back against the wall, one leg bent at the knee, his foot flat against the wall. He remembers Enjolras like this, as a college junior, when his hair was longer, and he wore dark eyeliner and black nail polish, and had hair ties on his wrist and red laces on his boots. He misses it, so much that it hurts. 

It is not that Enjolras that he misses - actually, that version of Enjolras had been really fucking annoying, even if the eyeliner had been stupidly hot. No, he misses the freedom they had then, the freedom from adulthood, from all of the knowledge they have since gained. He has thought it a thousand times already, and is sure he will think it thousands more, but this Enjolras in front of him right now seems so hollow, so unhappy compared to the one he remembers from junior year of college. That, he thinks, is what he misses. 

‘Hang on,’ Enjolras says, and smiles around his cigarette, ‘I used to be able to -’

He takes a deep inhale of smoke, holds his breath, and then moves his mouth in a funny shape, and blows smoke rings into the air. Grantaire cheers, and Enjolras coughs, and then they are both laughing, nearly doubled over. Suddenly, he seems lighter, closer somehow to the Enjolras that Grantaire misses from when they were younger. It doesn’t last long, but it is something, he supposes. 

It isn’t long before Enjolras’ cigarette is merely a stub, almost burning the ends of his fingers. He takes one last drag, as if he doesn’t want the cigarette to ever burn out, and then puts it out against the wall, and flicks it into the ashtray atop a nearby bin. Grantaire watches every move of his hands, somewhat reassured that he recognises the way they move, the slender fingers, the little scars on his knuckles from so many fights that he was nowhere near strong enough to win. 

‘Fuck, I forgot how good that is,’ Enjolras says, all on an exhale. 

‘Want another one?’ Grantaire asks, because he doesn’t know what else to say. 

‘Don’t tempt me,’ Enjolras says, with a sideways glance at him. ‘God, I miss chain-smoking back when I didn’t give a fuck about my health.’ 

‘You’re twenty-eight, Enjolras, you’re not dying.’ 

‘Doesn’t feel like it,’ Enjolras says, darkly, and while they don’t have the time to unpack all of _that_ , Grantaire so desperately wants to. He could probably get it to lead to a pretty heated argument, if he put the effort in. Not tonight, though. Not here, and not now. 

‘What time is it?’ Enjolras asks, when Grantaire doesn’t say anything, even though Grantaire can see the outline of his own phone in the back pocket of his trousers. He takes his phone from his pocket, and turns it on. 

‘Ten-fifteen,’ he replies. ‘Got somewhere to be?’ 

Enjolras sighs, but it is not with the exasperation that Grantaire is so used to being on the receiving end of. He looks upset, stressed - more than anything, he looks exhausted. 

‘I should go,’ Enjolras says, ‘I still have to find a place to stay.’ 

‘A place to - you came from the other side of the country and didn’t even book a place to stay?’ Grantaire says, incredulously. 

‘Grantaire, I don’t want to hear -’ 

‘You could’ve booked where Courf and Ferre are staying. Stayed with Cosette.’ 

Enjolras shrugs. ‘Didn’t want to impose.’ 

‘What, so you’re just gonna find a hotel in Paris at ten-thirty on a Friday night in the summer holidays?’ 

Enjolras glowers at him, and _oh_ , how he had missed that expression on his features. ‘Yes. I am,’ he says, stubborn as ever. 

‘Don’t be fucking stupid, Enj.’ Grantaire sighs. 

‘Don’t call me that.’ 

Enjolras hates it, the way he says _Enj_ like that, the way his mouth curls up at the corner in a half-smile, the way the word morphs, sometimes sounding like a name, but more often sounding like the word _ange_ , angel, in Grantaire’s lilting northern accent. It feels like a mockery, the way it does when he calls him _Apollon_ , Apollo, when he lets compliments fall from his lips the same way he holds a cigarette between them, barely holding it in place, but still with a strange kind of reverence, suspended in the enjoyment of it. 

Grantaire sighs. ‘Stay in my flat.’ 

‘No,’ Enjolras says, immediately, and it is more out of force of habit than anything else. 

‘Why not?’ Grantaire challenges. 

‘I don’t want to impose,’ he says, folding his arms defensively across his chest. 

Grantaire just laughs. ‘Don’t be a dick.’

‘Do you even have a spare bed?’ 

‘I have a sofa-bed.’ Enjolras remembers that sofa-bed. It’s pretty comfy, by anyone’s standards, and almost everyone he knows has spent a night there, usually while blackout drunk. It would be far easier to spend the night there than go out now. He’s not as young as he used to be, and he can already feel the ache deep in his bones telling him to get to bed. Maybe that’s partially his fault - becoming a teacher and having an alarm go off at seven in the morning five days a week tends to give you the sleep schedule of a nine-year-old. 

Enjolras bites his lip. Grantaire raises an eyebrow, and looks at him, dead in the eyes. He feels his heart stutter to a halt, as though it has given up on him. He has little other choice, he supposes, than to tend to what his heart is doing, and bring himself to a halt as well. 

‘Fine,’ he hears himself saying. ‘Fine, I’ll stay with you.’ 

‘And here was me thinking I’d have to wait ‘til the second date to take you home.’ Grantaire says, and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> leave me a comment! absolutely anything is a highlight of my day. or come talk to me about this fic on tumblr @weisenbachfelded ! much love to u all xx

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for being here! leave some feedback or kudos or thoughts or whatever u want. ily


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